Factual error: During the Recon flight launch, one shot shows the Super Hornet taking off with a blue Sidewinder. These blue missiles are simulation Sidewinders, and as stated in the Top Gun mistakes (same missiles used), all they do when launched is drop from the aircraft. (00:14:50)
Suggested correction: AIM-9 CATM's don't fall off the aircraft.
Corrected entry: A trained US Naval aviator would not pull up to get away from a rocket missile because a Surface to Air missile will climb at least twice as fast as the depicted non-supersonic jet fighter. (00:21:15 - 00:22:40)
Correction: The jet Burnett and Stackhouse are flying is an F/A 18 Hornet, a supersonic aircraft capable of pulling off the manoeuvre described in the mistake with ease.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Burnett stops the Pickup truck and it skids. The blond haired passenger on the truckbed is leaning on the rail and suddenly on the next shot he is leaning on the truck cab. (01:03:00)
Factual error: Fighter jets cannot dodge heat seekers head on. Missiles are simply too fast to be dodged head on by a jet due to the fact that fighter jets have to be at full throttle to stay in the air. (00:20:50)
Suggested correction: Actually they can. Head on presents less of thermal signature to the missile, as the aircraft engines are in the back. A radar guided missile could not be dodged so easily, however.
Corrected entry: Early in the movie, when Gene Hackman is berating Owen Wilson for wanting to resign from the Navy, "Admiral" Hackman refers to the ship they are on as a boat. Not even an 18-year-old Seaman Apprentice fresh out of boot camp would make such a grievous error in basic naval terminology.
Correction: I'm in the Navy myself and people frequently refer to their ship as 'The Boat'. When my squadron deploys we all gripe about having to go back to 'The Boat.'
Correction: Any ship where a naval aviator has made an arrested landing on is called a "boat." The aviators have been saying this since the 1950s, because they know it annoys the rest of the crew.
Factual error: The two SAMs are shot 5 to 10 seconds apart. Yet the second SAM catches up to the first and begins to travel at the same speed. (00:18:40)
